Morning Brief: Thursday, March 3, 2016

Today’s Morning Brief is brought to you by the Canadian Pharmacists Association. From renewing prescriptions, delivering vaccinations, providing medication management services and prescribing for minor ailments and conditions, Canada’s pharmacists are doing more to provide solutions to our healthcare challenges.

We’ll start in Vancouver this morning, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is finding it a bit hard to catch a break. He met with Aboriginal leaders yesterday to talk about the role First Nations can play in the fight against climate change, only to realize the talks weren’t going to be any easier than those with the premiers. As CP’s Bob Weber reports, Trudeau was facing their ire and having to defend himself before talks even started over the decision not to include the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Native Women’s Association of Canada.

Before the prime minister started a day and a half of meetings with the provincial and territorial premiers, he spoke at the Globe clean tech conference and urged premiers to overcome their political differences to collaborate on climate change, noting it’s not a matter of pitting pipelines against wind turbines. “The environment ought not to be a partisan issue,” he said.

Trudeau is in Vancouver to make good on an election pledge to meet with the premiers within three months of the Paris climate conference. But as they try to draft a roadmap to a climate policy framework, there’s going to be more than one speed bump slowing things down. Enter Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, who continues to torpedo any talk of carbon pricing. With Quebec now seeking an injunction against the Energy East Pipeline, Brent Rathgeber says the knives are coming out right on cue. “Some advice for Mr. Trudeau: Keep Couillard and Wall separated at dinner — and make sure they get plastic cutlery.”

Still with Energy East, the Globe and Mail is reporting that former Quebec premier Jean Charest tried to set up a meeting earlier this year between the Prime Minister’s Office and the promoters of the controversial pipeline. As Daniel LeBlanc reports, “The PMO said it refused to take the meeting with officials from TransCanada Corp., arguing Mr. Charest’s entreaty did not respect Canada’s lobbying regime.”

NDP health and justice critics are urging the Liberal government to dispense with a Harper-era law that they say restricts the establishment of new harm-reduction clinics. Three NDP MPs – Don Davies, Jenny Kwan and Murray Rankin – all from B.C. ridings, visited the Insite safe injection clinic and the Dr. Peter’s Centre yesterday in Vancouver, and called on the government to repeal provisions of bill C-2, legislation that made its way through the previous Parliament under the Conservatives. The law added a number of new steps to processing applications for harm reduction or safe-consumption sites. Our Kyle Duggan has the details.

Chiefs hold a briefing on the proposed Algonquins of Ontario Agreement.

The Iroquois caucus holds a news conference to outline its opposition to a Land Claim Agreement in Principle currently in the process of ratification between the Algonquins and the federal and provincial governments.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hosts a First Ministers’ Meeting with provincial and territorial Premiers, which will focus on developing a pan-Canadian framework to grow the economy while also reducing emissions. The prime minister will hold a media availability at 1:30 p.m. with the premiers.

Simon Fraser University holds its annual Outstanding Alumni Awards ceremony. Margaret Trudeau, an advocate for mental health and clean water, is among five alumni who will be honoured.

Donald Trump unveiled his proposals for reforming U.S. health care late yesterday. The Republican frontrunner wants to allow prescription drugs to be imported and to turn the Medicaid program for the poor into block grants to states. Most of all, he wants to repeal Obamacare and says he’ll do it on day one if elected. In the same breath, there’s this: “We must also make sure that no one slips through the cracks simply because they cannot afford insurance.” Hmmm….we could be wrong, but wasn’t that was one of the main goals of Obamacare?

To which Conrad Black says, don’t bother. He’s predicting a Trump presidency and says of the billionaire: ‘You can’t stop him’. On the other side of the fence, David Jacobson, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, expects the Donald is about to be “slaughtered.” “Not only will he lose, but he will almost certainly lose the Senate (to) the Democrats.”

In Featured Opinion this morning:

Justin Trudeau came to power promising “sunny ways”. But as the overture to this week’s First Ministers conference proved, not even prime ministers can control the weather.

The joke is wearing thin now. Jonathan Manthorpe takes a closer look at what could be the weirdest U.S. presidential election since Ulysses S. Grant ran against a dead man. Will Donald Trump’s candidacy do lasting damage to the Republican Party? Probably.

Finally this morning, a rare rave instead of a rant. Rick Mercer says of Guy Giono’s push for electoral reform: “Stephen Harpers’ chief of staff sitting down with the Ed Broadbent people is kinda like Darth Vader sitting down with the Ewoks to fight climate change.” That said, he likes it.